A Balancing Act
Reach! Collapse! Balance!
Repeat.
As if it wasn’t challenging enough trying to navigate our “new normal” in these “unprecedented times,” damn if it isn’t 100 degrees in Austin today.
And it feels more like a summer day in Bangkok. Have I complained enough recently about how my home studio doesn’t have air conditioning?
Yes, I am grumpy today. No good reason other than like everyone else in the entire world I am exhausted trying to figure out how I am supposed to be living my life, particularly now that some places, including the great State of Texas, have removed many of the restrictions on social interactions. Now—rather than all of us using the same playbook—we are running around the sandlot, some of us playing offense, some of us playing defense and no one entirely sure who has the ball or which way is the end zone. Can you tell my father was a football coach and my husband is missing sports at the moment?
Funny how much more stressful things feel when you are constantly second-guessing yourself and trying to read the tea leaves for some cryptic sign that the world is not falling apart.
I find it difficult to make art when my mind is so busy riding roller coasters. But I have to confess that I have enjoyed spending some of my COVID-ride with a handful of stoic beauties I found on the pages of some health and fitness articles in vintage 1960s issues of Good Housekeeping.
I feel like I can really relate to these women. They are working sooo hard at not much of anything.
Reach! Collapse! Balance! Repeat.
Struggling to stay afloat while wearing a fairly unflattering pair of shorts and a t-shirt. Quelle horreur!
Tottering on the Edge, 12” x 12” / acrylic, ink and pages of 1960s women’s lifestyle magazine on aluminum panel
Usually I find it challenging to create smaller sized art pieces. Anything larger than 48” gets unwieldy to move around, but smaller than 24” can be so darn fussy. No joke, it can take me just as long to create a 12” piece as it does to make a 36” one. The mark-making movements come easier for me on the larger scale and I can “see” the spaces better at the larger scale.
But the world has changed. Most folks will be a bit cautious with their discretionary dollars and I am not always able to work in a space conducive to making large-scale pieces, so I have had to find a place in my (h)art for the little ones. The trick for me has been to interact with these small pieces in a way that feels authentic.
I guess that’s how my “fitness gals” started to appear.
Their determination and sensible style made me smile, so I started creating dastardly dramatic color fields for them to navigate and conquer. I tested their limits by adding so many layers of paint and text strips, but in the end—they persevered.
They still make me smile when I pass by and I am grateful for their steadfast encouragement through these “difficult days.”
Stay healthy, my friends!